john boehner, the speaker of the house, has also been seen leaving. so what we want to do is find out what is going on here. obviously we have our jessica yellin there and we will talk to her a little later about what she has learned. now, the fiscal cliff and these last-ditch talks is the only game in town. joining me for today's strategy session is roland martin and cnn contributor erick erickson, editor-in-chief of. they are saying, hey, we don't have to compromise. we have more people in congress coming in that are democrats. the president doesn't have to give on that $250,000 top. where do you stand on this? do you think the president does or should compromise up to -- particularly on the tax issue? >> you can't be a democrat and ask republicans to compromise if you don't want to give up something. i think the president clearly understood that. so when he laid the $250,000 out, he gave himself some room because, again, you saw speaker boehner's proposal, it dealt with 1 million. look, you have to compromise. democrats can't say, hey, we have more